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Where I work they can’t find enough citizens and immigrants (illegal? don’t ask don’t tell) for the skilled IT positions. They have no choice but to either
a) kill the project or
b) offshore to India

Last year, I aveaged via email over 20 high paying jobs a week where the company seemed desperate. This year it seems to be over 50 jobs a week ... One email I received today directly from the hiring manager of an insurance company (my area of expertise) seemed especially desperate. Good salary, good benefits, good location in Chicago’s west loop next to the suburban commuter lines and to the expressways. He’s been trying to fill the same skilled position and just can’t find anyone willing to work in the West Loop. .... and I thought the place I work at had a hard time finding workers because it is in the middle of the corn fields.

The simple fact is that the economy is booming. (It’s all Bush’s fault.) Anyone who is willing and able has his pick of jobs.

The unemployment problems are structural.
- drug and alcohol abusers, excons, mentally ill have a hard time finding a good job. But I see them turning down construction jobs that they could have if they wanted them.

- Our public education system has failed to educate people with the ability to think. They learn how to FEEL about math and science and what to BELIEVE on global warming and evolution and a hundred other BELIEFS. But they are not taught how to handle facts and logic.

Witness some of the posts on FR where lack of facts and logic causes even conservatives to blame someone else (illegals, the MSM, etc) for their condition rather than to take personal responsibility for their situation.

The simple fact is that in the USA each of us is personally responsible for our personal situation. We cannot blame anyone or anything else ... not even our lousy public education ... for our inability to hit some imagined employment lottery prize.

I agree. Here in Lubbock, we have a lot of call centers, and they have been continuously hiring for god knows how long, they just can’t get enough people to cover there contracts. A domino’s here has been trying to hire a delivery driver for over 6 months to no avail. These are all low skill jobs, I can’t imagine how difficult it is to fill high skilled positions. The fact is that basically there is not enough workers here to fill jobs be they delivery drivers or engineers. I wish someone would come up with a “unfilled positions rate” to measure how many positions here are going unfilled due to lack of available talent.

I think there are two serious problems:

1) Thanks to the decline in standards, younger college graduates have minimal critical thinking skills.

2) Companies have not adjusted to the idea that people who do have experience and critical thinking skills are demanding to be paid accordingly.

Thus, there is a now huge deficit of early-to-mid career professionals who can think and who are willing to to work in the same inflation-adjusted salary range they would have been willing to work in twenty years ago. Faced with a choice between paying more than they want to pay for the talent they need and spending a lot of money on remedial in-house training, companies are naurally looking overseas for a quick fix.

Companies who are smart enough to bite the bullet and pay the going rate are going to gain a competitive edge that more than makes up for the extra salary expense. Very few MBA-run firms get that concept, though. You start to run into senior managements with the "Well, I never got paid like that when I was coming up!" attitudes. Well, you didn't work now, Pops. The game has changed.

I suspect in your West Loop example, a "great salary" as opposed to a "good salary" would have rapidly attracted just the right candidate. ;)

Good points - but I think it can be argued that there are a number of entities, public and private, that prefer a dull, slow and never-taught-to-think populace. I see this every day, and I’m certainly not immune.

The ability to think clearly and logically especially under stress and probably more importantly, determining the right question(s) to ask, can certainly change things dramatically. What’s really criminal about this general state of educational affairs, it’s not like logical fallacies or critical thinking is a new area of study.

If they raise their starting salaries high enough they won’t have any problems filling the positions. I can bemoan the fact that I’ve got $25K in my pocket and none of the Toyota dealers in the state want to sell me a new 4x4 Tundra for that price. Perhaps it’s due to a truck shortage or something. Maybe the government could help me out? Or just maybe I could cough up the full 35 grand that the market says it’s worth. When your employers decide to do the same thing they’ll find they have no problem filling positions.

It’s like that in India too. Highly skilled guys have discovered they can name their salary. Even mediocre college gradutates will take a job, work there for six months, and move across the street for 50% more.

Of course, there are a large number of not-very-skilled people available in India at low rates. Many outsourcing projects are hiring them.

If the sales rep offers you a fantastic bargain, or two for the price of one, watch out!

The simple fact is that the economy is booming. (It’s all Bush’s fault.) Anyone who is willing and able has his pick of jobs.

Companies largely have chased anyone with a technical mind out of those fields. Even before outsourcing, companies have been needlessly firing technical professionals so that executives could get their "cost cutting" bonuses. As a result, a ton of people have left corporate jobs.

People got sick of being a highly educated migrant worker.